1. Scope of Invention
This application relates to golf bags of improved design and more particularly to golf bags that have unique molded partition features which facilitate carriage of irons with heads down, improved distribution of club weight and protection of club shafts.
2. Prior Art
Golf bags are manufactured and offered for sale in a multitude of forms from the lightweight, subset cloth bags (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,109) to the heavy weight, multi-compartment bags (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,598).
Many innovations have been applied in design and construction of golf bags to mitigate problems with prior construction or provide special features. For example, one type innovation concerns protection of the heads of wood clubs (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,876,134 and 5,004,345).
While the majority of golf bags carry a full set of clubs loosely and unseparated, another type innovation concerns separating clubs individually or ill groups by providing longitudinal separators therein (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,311,178, 5,148,915, 5,135,107, 5,279,414, 5,465,839 and 5,544,743).
A further type innovation concerns modification of the top portion or throat of the golf bags to hold club heads individually separated or separated in small groups (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,596,328, 4,600,100, 4,667,820, 4,995,510 and 5,458,240).
Yet another type Innovation to separate and organize clubs involves providing a special type throat on the bag plus contoured seats or recesses in the bottom of the bag (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,703).
Still another type innovation to separate and organize clubs involves providing grouped ledges and brackets upstanding from the bag throat (See U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,518).
All of the innovations discussed above relate to conventional golf bags, into which clubs are inserted, shaft first, with heads up. It has also been disclosed to carry the irons of a golf club set with heads down in an unconventional, rectangular case (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,992).
In addition to club organization problems associated with golf bags, the development of graphite shaft clubs has created yet another problem in carrying golf clubs in even improved type golf bags, i.e., damage to the graphite shafts by xe2x80x9cnickingxe2x80x9d (See U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,581).
A golf club carrier invented by Leitzel described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,724 teaches a pleated, resilient plastic irons separator for insertion of the irons clubs between adjacent folds into an upright orientation with club heads down. Although club separation is accomplished, any iron will fit between any of the pleats so that club identification is lacking.
A very recent U.S. Pat. No. 5,607,053 teaches a golf club storing device invented by Sumiyoshi which stores all of the golf clubs, irons and woods, in the heads down position into elongated flexible tubular sacks. Again, no club identification is afforded by this device.
In spite of the numerous innovations that have been made and applied to golf bags, the vast majority of known golf bags continue to present users with problems, e.g., the top-heavy nature of the bags because the heaviest part of the clubs, namely the heads, are carried at the top of the bags, club damage and ease of identification. My previous U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,944,184 and 5,822,336 address these existing problems. However, the present invention also addresses other manufacturing and economic problems yet remaining by providing golfers with an unconventional and remarkably improved type of golf bag of a more practical, manufacturable design.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a golf bag which keeps individual irons from coming into contact with one another, to stop them from rattling and to organize them so as to make them easy to locate.
It is another object of this invention to mitigate damage to shafts of clubs made with graphite or delicate shafts.
A further object of this invention is to provide adequate space for the head of the putter and woods so it will not touch other clubs even if the putter has a wide variation of sizes and shapes.
It is yet another object of this invention to accommodate a large range in shapes and sizes of woods or drivers carried in a set of clubs and to hold their heads upwardly in generally fixed position.
Still another object of this invention to carry all irons with heads down at the bottom of the improved golf bag lowering weight distribution in the golf bag and thereby mitigating tendency to tip over.
Yet another object of this invention is to enable this new golf bag of the present invention to have a size and elongated shape typical of conventional golf bags.
It is still another object of this invention to have the space tolerance to accept and hold all irons of most commercially available golf club sets.
A yet further object of this invention is to satisfy the above objects with an improved, more economical and easy to manufacture extruded plastic design.
In accordance with these and other objects which will become apparent hereinafter, the instant invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The objects are accomplished in accordance with the invention by the provision of an improved golf bag for carrying a set of golf clubs including woods, irons and putter with the heads of the woods and putter positioned upward and the heads of the irons positioned downward.
Each partition is formed of substantially straight and flat longitudinal extending panels or partitions within a generally circular or oval-shaped tubular body. The preferred embodiment is formed as a plastic extrusion producing the desired cross sectional configuration and compartment size and arrangement.
The new golf bags of the invention eliminate several of the annoyances associated with the use of conventional golf bags, i.e., rattling of the clubs and haphazard, moveable carriage of clubs making them hard to quickly identify and be easily removable from the conventional bags. Thus, in the new golf bags, all clubs are held in an steady manner and organized position, particularly the irons which are held with shafts up and against the bag perimeter making each iron club easy to quickly identify and easily remove without interference from other clubs in the bag.
This invention is therefore directed to a golf bag for carrying a set of golf clubs including woods, irons and putter with the heads of the woods and putter positioned upward and the heads of the irons positioned downward. The golf bag includes a generally tubular golf bag case having a substantially uniform cross section along its entire length and a plurality of elongated longitudinally extending compartments formed as an extruded plastic partition assembly having flat panels arranged to define an open upper end of each separate compartment. Each compartment and its associated upper opening have an individually shaped periphery sized to admit the head of only one particular iron. The golf bag has a molded bottom plate that supports the heads of the irons and the grip ends of each wood and putter and attaches to a multi-layer golf bag case. The golf bag lowers the weight distribution of the bag contents, keeps individual irons from coming into contact with one another, stops them from rattling, organizes them so as to make them easy to locate while mitigating possible damage to the shafts of clubs made with graphite shafts. Economy and practicality of manufacture are attained through plastic extrusion-friendly design improvements.